Field of the Invention
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to assessing color and, more particularly, to a method and apparatus for quantifying color perception and searching for a selected quantified color.
Description of the Related Art
With the growth of the Internet, e-commerce is an important way of conducting business. When shopping online, a purchaser may desire a product in a specific color. However, color perception, or how the human eye perceives color, is subjective and varies based on context, such as the level of brightness, or luminance and other factors such as the color of nearby objects, as well as a person's experiences. For example, the term “cherry red” may be selected as the identity of a specific color by one person when viewed in a given context, but may be identified as a different color to another person or even by the same person when the color is viewed in a different context. When shopping online, a purchaser may want to match a color of an item being purchased to the specific color desired by the purchaser based on a prior perception of that color by the purchaser.
A color space describes the way colors can be represented. Standard red-green-blue (sRGB) is defined by adding red, green, and blue light together in various ways to produce a broad array of colors. The main purpose of the sRGB color space is for the sensing, representing, and displaying images in electronic systems. Hence, sRGB color space is the working color space of computer monitors, printers, and the internet because it models the output of physical devices rather than human vision perception. sRGB is not a perceptual color space. “Lab” color space is a perceptual color space, meaning the color is designed to approximate human vision. The L component of Lab stands for luminosity, or brightness, and ranges from dark to bright. The a and b components of Lab stand for chroma (that is, the color components). The a component ranges from green to magenta, while the b component ranges from blue to yellow. The L component closely matches human perception of lightness. With a constant chromaticity, perceived colorfulness increases with an increase in luminance, meaning even though a color remains constant, seeing the color in a less bright light causes the human eye to perceive the color as more intense.
The RGB color space comprises 256 values for red (R), 256 values for green (G) and 256 values for blue (B). The result is 2563 possible color combinations, however, each color combination in the RGB color space is not in fact perceptually unique. Since the Lab color space approximates human vision perception, it comprises significantly fewer than 2563 colors in its color space and is better adapted to characterize human perception of color images as compared with the RGB color space. Because not every color in an RGB color space represents a perceptually unique color, when a purchaser selects on item online using an RGB color space, an acceptable match is not always received. The purchaser may receive an item in a color that the purchaser had not intended. This results in a poor user experience.
Therefore, there is a need for a method and apparatus for quantifying color perception.